The red thing on the left is the actual converter. The black thing in the middle is the slide tray (with the top/cover open). The white circular thing on the right is one of the carousels.

The way it works is simple…

You place four slides onto the tray and close the cover so it clicks shut. Then you slide the tray through the converter, one image at a time. The converter has a light box that projects the pictures onto a little LCD screen…like this:

(In the photo above, the image on the screen was taken by my mom in Venice in 1972 — five years before I was born.)

Then you basically just click the “OK/COPY” button and push the tray over to the next slide. It’s a bit more complicated than that. There are several other buttons and settings, and it actually took me a while to figure out how everything works, but once I got it going…man. I’ve been flying along.

For those of you who’ve never seen a slide carousel, here’s a closer look:

Slides now seem absurd and clunky and antiquated, but several decades ago, this was cutting-edge technology.

Here are four of the carousels that I’ve already finished:

Check out this photo of my mom in Iran in 1960:

(She’s the one in the purple dress.)

She was 23 years old and went on a trip around the world by herself to Greece, Turkey, Israel, and yes, Iran.

IRAN?!?!

Of course, the world was much different back then, but still…damn.

I’ve found lots of old photos of my dad that I’d never seen before, including this one with me in Florida in 1985:

As you can imagine, seeing all these old photos has been rather intense — and at times quite sad. But it’s worth it. I feel like I’m rediscovering and reconnecting to my childhood.

Here’s one more photo of me from 1986 with my baseball glove. I was almost nine at the time:

There are so many more photos that I’m going to share. In the coming weeks, I’ll post some here on the blog, and I’ll also add some to the photos page on my web site.

Okay, okay…ONE more of me for now. Here I am, age five, proudly lifting a heavy metal wheel of some sort over my head:

I found your very interesting site and story on line recently. Rather amazing!!!

I saw your interview with Howard Smith at the MLB offices in NYC. Although I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Howard, I did try to share some important information with him about 10 years ago. I too have quite a story.

My name is Jerry Dior. I designed the Major League Baseball logo in 1968. It was done for the 100th anniversary of Major League Baseball in 1969. It was supposed to be for one year. I am delighted that MLB has continued to use it in such extensive ways.

Finally last year I had a wonderful surprise. MLB agreed to recognize my contribution and to celebrate me at both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. My family and I will be forever grateful for that acknowledgment. My story has brought me indescribable joy which I’m sure you understand. If you wish, you can read about me on line. Just google my name.

I would really like to hear from you. I can tell that you love baseball and are sharing that with others.

Be well and safe.

Warm regards,

Jerry Dior

—————————————————

As great as this email was, I was a bit skeptical. Why? Because I had never heard of Jerry Dior — kind of strange considering how much random baseball trivia I know and how much I worship the MLB logo.

That’s where Google came in. I searched for his name…and wow. The guy is legit, no doubt about it. Of all the articles that have been written about him, my favorite is this one from the Wall Street Journal. Have you ever heard the rumor that the batter in the logo is based on Harmon Killebrew? I can’t count the number of times that I’ve heard someone say that — and I never knew whether or not to believe it. In the article, Dior is quoted as saying, “That’s completely untrue. It’s not Harmon Killebrew. It’s not anyone in particular.” Every part of the logo, it turns out, was pure design.

Anyway, I wrote back to Dior, and his response included the following line: “If you wish, I’ll send you a signed MLB logo. I just need an address.”

Look what arrived in the mail a few days later:

(The envelope wasn’t bent or torn when I received it, FYI.)

The envelope contained a hand-written note on an index card…

…which was taped to the back of this:

There was also a signed patch. Here’s the front…

…and here’s the back:

To give you an idea of how big these items are, I photographed them next to a baseball:

Total awesomeness.

Big thanks to Jerry Dior, not only for contacting me and then generously sending me a package of goodies, but for creating one of the most beautiful and iconic and meaningful logos I’ve ever seen.

Last night, while watching Game 1 of the NLCS, I made an earth-shattering discovery and Tweeted about it. The discovery was that I can mute the announcers but still hear the sounds of the game. Pretty cool, huh? Several people asked how, so here’s the answer…

It all begins with my receiver — the unit marked with the red arrow in the following photo:

The receiver is made by a company called Denon, and in case you want to get one for yourself, the model number is AVR-1610.

(For the record, I know *very* little about electronics. I never would’ve discovered this trick if not for a friend who was futzing around with my sound system.)

The receiver has two buttons that allow me to change the “surround mode.” See here:

Normally I keep it on “stereo” mode, but if I flip through the options and select “dolby digital” instead, the announcers go bye-bye.

Look! Here’s a photo of me changing the mode:

In the photo above, the display screen is hard to see, so here’s a better look at it:

I have so much free time right now that I almost don’t know what to do with myself, and you know what? I couldn’t be happier. For the last 19 months, I was working full-time on my book — and then some. Whenever I took a day off (or even an hour off) to do something else, I felt guilty. That’s not a fun way to live. I was always racing a deadline, stressing out over a chapter, chasing down someone for an interview, and tweaking various paragraphs into oblivion. Six weeks ago, when I was working on the Rawlings chapter, I kept waking up in the middle of the night because of all the stress.

Now the stress is gone.

Last week I turned in the Rawlings chapter. That was the final chapter that I needed to write (although it’ll appear in the middle of the book). I even got permission from Rawlings to use several photos that I took at the factory, and let me just say that the chapter is filled with so many incredible/descriptive details about the current manufacturing process…you are seriously not going to believe it. Last week I also turned in the copyedited manuscript. Basically, what that means is that the whole book was printed out on regular paper, and there were lots of markings and notations in colored pencil. Those markings were made by a copyeditor at Random House whose main job was to clean up the grammar and punctuation. The book was already in pretty good shape by the time the copyeditor worked on it, but there were some issues. For example, there were several typos, lots of misplaced commas, and a bunch of hyphenated words that were actually supposed to be one word. Did you know that “postseason” is one word”? I’d always written it as “post-season,” so hey, I learned something new. I also learned that “web site” should be “website.” And the list goes on. The copyeditor, meanwhile, made some changes that I vetoed. To a certain extent, that’s my right as the author. Obviously, some grammatical rules must be obeyed, but for example when the copyeditor changed “Spring Training” to “spring training,” I explained that even though it might look funny, those words are capitalized in the baseball world.

Right now the book is being laid out by the typesetter. All the headings and fonts and photos and captions and page numbers are being put into place. That’ll take a few weeks and then the “first pass” (as it’s called) will get sent to me. I’m also still dealing with the cover. My editor and I finally agreed on a particular photo of a ball. Now she’s talking to the art department about whether the background will be gray or black. I’ve seen both versions, and I like the black one more. But whatever…the point is that there are still countless details that need attention. Just before I wrote this entry, I spent two hours compiling a list of media contacts for my publicist. Writing the book was only the first step; spreading the word about it will be just as important, so hopefully I’ll be doing a bunch of interviews next season and getting lots of chances to promote it.

Am I done with the book? Yeah, kind of, mostly. The hard part is over, and that feels incredible. I’ll post another update soon.

Reds versus Phillies? Whatever. I was just excited to get out of New York City for a day and see some playoff baseball.

This was the scene outside the 3rd base gate at Citizens Bank Park:

The whole street was blocked to traffic, and there was all kinds of stuff that you don’t see during the regular season. Check out the four-part photo below. Starting on the top left and going clockwise, you’re looking at a) a stage for a band, b) a live broadcast by a classic rock radio station, c) inflatable goodness, and d) various TV trucks:

Want to see what else there was?

Free/unlimited ice cream samples courtesy of Turkey Hill:

Given the sad fact that I’m allergic to sugar, I only had two. (But given the fact that I seem to be immune to calories, I still consider myself lucky.)

By the time the gates opened at 3:35pm, this was the crowd waiting to get in:

(Don’t get excited about the early opening time; the first pitch was scheduled for a little after six o’clock.)

Less than a minute after I reached the seats in left-center field, I got Phillies pitcher Jose Contreras to throw me a ball:

Two minutes later, it occurred to me that that was my 300th ball of the season.

This was the view to my right soon after:

The front row was already packed, and the left field seats ended up getting seriously crowded.

I headed over to right field. There was more room to run over there:

The main challenge was battling the sun. You can get an idea of the intense glare in the following panorama photo, taken by a friend and fellow ballhawk named Ryan. The red arrow is pointing to me:

Forty-five minutes into BP, I made a nice play in order to come up with my second ball. I’m not sure who was hitting. It was one of the Reds’ lefties. It was probably Jay Bruce or Joey Votto, but might’ve been Laynce Nix. Anyway, the batter ripped a line-drive homer that was heading one full section to my left, so I bolted in that direction, and as I reached the next staircase, I jumped and lunged and caught it on the fly — all this with the sun in my eyes and another guy reaching for the ball from behind. It probably didn’t look all that special from afar, but trust me, there was a lot that went into it.

My third ball was as unexciting as it gets: Aaron Harang retrieved a ball from the warning track in right-center and tossed it up to me. (I ended up giving it away to a kid after the game.)

I headed back to left field when a bunch of righties started hitting. Look how crowded it was:

There wasn’t an empty row anywhere, except at the very back of the section in left-center.

Toward the end of BP, I got the attention of Reds 1st base coach Billy Hatcher. He was roaming the outfield with his fungo bat, and I convinced him to hit me a fungo. I stood on the armrests of a seat in order to elevate above the crowd and give him a better target. He was only about 75 feet away, and I was probably in the sixth row. His fungo was right on the money, but it fell a few feet short of where I wanted it. I wanted to be able to reach up and catch the ball over my head. That would’ve prevented anyone else from interfering, but the ball ended up waist-high, so another fan in front of me got his glove on it. Conveniently, after we both bobbled it, the ball dropped straight down and bounced straight up off the concrete in my row, and I was able to grab it.

After BP, I raced to the 3rd base dugout and got my fifth ball of the day from the Reds’ equipment guy. Here he is just before he tossed it to me…

…and here are two photos of the ball itself:

Is that beautiful or what?

Here’s another beautiful thing — the military jet flyover after the national anthem:

The fans were pumped…

…and so was I because I had a ticket for the fancy-schmancy Diamond Club area behind home plate. (I won’t get into all the details of the club here. If you want to know more about it, check out my entry from April 25, 2007. That was my first time there.) This was my view during the bottom of the 1st inning. Note Bronson Arroyo’s fantastic leg kick, in addition to all the standing room behind the seats:

Did I mention that the fans were pumped?

Here’s another photo, pretty much taken from the same spot as the one above. The difference here is that Aroldis Chapman was on the hill:

It was my first time seeing him pitch in person, and MAN-ALIVE can that young fella throw a baseball!!! Look at the radar gun reading in the following photo:

That wasn’t even his fastest pitch.

I don’t know how to describe the movement on his fastball. In fact, there appears to be very little movement. When Chapman releases the ball, it just stays straight, like there’s no gravity or air resistance. It doesn’t even seem that much faster than, say, a 95mph fastball. It just seems sturdier, if that makes sense. Everyone in the aisle was frozen in place…just standing around and watching him pitch:

It was truly awesome, and I was glad to be so close to the action.

Despite Chapman’s velocity, the Phillies managed to score three runs off him, all of which were unearned. The Reds’ defense fell apart. Look how many errors they made:

Despite all the standing room I had, I didn’t come close to a foul ball, but you know what? That hardly even mattered. MLB used to have commemorative balls (like this and this) during the first two rounds of the postseason, but not anymore.

With Brad Lidge in the process of nailing down the save, I worked my way to the seats behind the Reds’ dugout…

…but didn’t get anything there after the final out.

Final score: Phillies 7, Reds 4.

SNAGGING STATS:

• 5 balls at this game (4 pictured on the right because I gave one away)

I really wanted to snag my 300th ball of the season, but rather than go for a 3rd-out ball (which would’ve been fairly easy), I stayed in the outfield and tried to catch a home run instead.

No luck.

Given the fact that this was the final game of the season, and given the fact that the players were likely going to give away some of their equipment after the final out, I made my way to the Tigers’ dugout at the start of the 9th inning.

This was my view:

As soon as the Tigers put the finishing touches on their 4-2 victory, I moved down into the front row:

Here’s what happened next:

It was only the fifth bat I’d ever gotten, and it belonged to Austin Jackson! Are you aware of how awesome Jackson is? This was his first season in the Major Leagues, and he finished with a .293 batting average, 181 hits, 34 doubles, 10 triples, 27 stolen bases, and 103 runs scored. Okay, so he struck out 170 times. Whatever. Austin Jackson is The Man — and the potential rookie of the year. The way I got his bat was simple and unexpected. As the players were filing into the dugout, some guys flung their caps into the crowd, and a few others tossed their batting gloves. During all the chaos, I happened to see a bat get lifted up from below the dugout roof, and I lunged for it. That was it. I grabbed it a split-second before anyone else realized what was going on. As for those batting gloves, I got one of those, too:

This one belonged to Will Rhymes — not exactly a household name, but give the guy some credit. This was his rookie season, and he batted .304 in 54 games.

After all the Tigers were gone, there was still some action on the Orioles’ side, so I hurried over to their dugout:

It was painfully crowded. I couldn’t get any closer than the 3rd row.

In the photo above, those are fans standing on the field. They were picked through some sort of random drawing to receive “game-worn” jerseys from the players. Why is “game-worn” in quotes? Let’s just say that the jerseys were definitely NOT worn during the game that had just been played on the field. Right after the final out, the players disappeared into the clubhouse, where they obviously changed into alternate uniforms before returning 10 minutes later. How do I know this? Because…during the game, several Orioles dove for balls and slid into bases. Their uniforms were D-I-R-T-Y when the game ended and perfectly clean when they returned for the give-away. (Maybe, after changing, the players spent a few minutes in the clubhouse playing backgammon, in which case their clean uniforms would have actually been “game-worn.”) I’m just bitter because I’ve never gotten a jersey. That’s probably what I’ll ask for when I finally catch an important home run that a player wants back. But anyway…

Here’s a closer look at the bat:

Adam Jones started signing autographs along the foul line…

…so I ran over and got him on an extra ticket I had from the previous day:

I thought about getting him on the back of my October 3rd ticket — I liked the idea of getting all my autographs for the day on one ticket — but because he’s so good and has the potential to become a superstar, I had him sign a separate item.

Just as I was getting set to leave the stadium, the groundskeepers appeared in the right field corner and started playing catch:

I was still stuck at 299 balls for the season, and the playoffs were (and still are) a big question mark, so I thought, “This is my chance.”

(In the photo above, that’s me in the white shirt.)

I asked one of the groundskeepers if I could have a ball when he was finished throwing. He said, “Probably not because this is all we have to play with.”

Ahh. So they were going to play a game on the field. Lucky them…

Well, it just so happened that one of the groundskeepers airmailed his throwing partner. The ball landed in the seats. I ran over and grabbed it. And when the guy started flapping his glove at me, I tossed it back to him, figuring he’d give it to me when he was done. I mean, now he had a reason to give it to me. I had just done him a favor. He owed it to me, in fact. But guess what? He never gave it back. And it gets worse. After he jogged off, one of his buddies taunted me by pretending to throw one to me. Nice. Really nice. (I’m considering placing the Hample Jinx on the entire Orioles grounds crew, but I’m not sure how that would work. I can tell you, though, that I *will* find some way to get revenge.)

I had a long internal debate over whether or not to count that final ball. I mean, I *did* snag it. But then I gave it away. But I normally count balls that I give away. But I give those away voluntarily. GAH!!! Ultimately I decided not to count it. It just seemed cheap. And for what it’s worth, my friend Bassey said, “It’s more poetic to end the season with 299 balls than 300.” But then again, who knows? I might just end up making my way to a playoff game or two.

Here I am with Roger, Jona, and Bassey after the game on Eutaw Street:

If you look at the pavement in the photo above, you can see that it had just started to rain. Ha-haaa!!! It actually rained pretty hard after that. Take THAT, grounds crew!!! And get ready for more misery in 2011…

For the final weekend of the regular season, I drove down to Baltimore with Jona and two other friends. Here we are outside the stadium:

In the photo above, the gentleman on the left is a teacher named Roger. He and I have known each other for more than a decade, and this wasn’t our first baseball road trip together. He was with me in 2003 when I snagged my 2,000th ball at Olympic Stadium. The guy in the yellow shirt is a writer named Bassey. I met him last year at my writing group. He played high school baseball in Milwaukee and now works for the New York Times.

Anyway, let’s get on with the action…

My first ball of the day was a batting practice homer hit by Adam Jones that landed in the empty seats in straight-away left field. Nothing fancy about it. My second ball, however, was a bit more exciting. Someone on the Orioles (not sure who) launched a homer 30 feet to my right. I bolted through my row and made a leaping back-handed catch at the last second. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jona had reached the left field seats by that point, and she took a beautiful action shot of the ball flying toward my open glove. The ball is hard to see because it’s overlapping the white uniform pants of some players in the background, so I drew a red circle around it. Check it out:

Do you see the fan positioned two rows behind me? His name is Ben. He’s a new-but-very-talented ballhawk who recently snagged A-Rod’s 607th career home run. Do you see the fan running over from the next section? His name is Tim, and he, too, is fairly new and highly skilled as a ballhawk.

Ready for a funny photo of all three of us? Look at our ridiculous facial expressions as another home run ball sailed over our heads:

I forget who ended up snagging that ball, but I can tell you that it wasn’t me.

…they weren’t interested in snagging baseballs. They just stayed in one spot and watched the action unfold all around them.

My third ball of the day was a Nolan Reimold homer that landed in the seats and rolled down to the front row. My fourth ball was a ground-rule double, and I have no idea who hit it. I’ve had a tough time this season with ground-rule doubles in Baltimore. The warning track is made of rubber, and the outfield wall is low, so lots of balls have bounced over me. On this one, however, I played it perfectly. Once I determined that the ball was going to land on the track, I backed up a few rows and ended up in the perfect spot to reach up for the easy catch.

When the Tigers took the field, I got Phil Coke to throw me a ball as he walked toward the bullpen. Here I am (wearing dark Tigers gear) about to catch it:

My sixth ball was another homer. I ranged a full section to my right for it and made a back-handed catch in traffic:

That one felt pretty good — and then I caught another homer on the fly in left-center. Here’s a photo of that ball on its way down:

As soon as I caught the ball, I noticed that there was a young boy standing right in front of me. Even though I hadn’t robbed him, I decided to hook him up with the ball, and yes, Jona got a photo of that, too:

Halfway through the Tigers’ portion of BP, Eddie Bonine tossed me a ball in straight-away left field, and then I caught another homer on the fly in left-center. This was probably my best play of the day. There were people all around, so I climbed up on a seat while the ball was in mid-air and reached far to my left over everyone. In the following photo, the diagonal arrow in the upper right is pointing to the ball, and the vertical arrow down below is pointing at me:

Every time I snagged a ball, I tossed it to Jona so she could put it in my backpack. Here I am preparing to toss her another:

Remember when I saw the Tigers at Target Field earlier this season on May 4th and May 5th? The Tigers were using balls during BP that had been marked like this with a thick black magic marker. Well, the Tigers were still using marked balls this past weekend in Baltimore. Some were marked on both the logo and sweet spot, while others were marked only on the sweet spot…like this:

(That’s Jona’s hand, by the way. Don’t get the wrong idea.)

Later in the day, I noticed that one of my baseballs had a faint black streak on it:

It occurred to me that the streak was probably the residue (or imprint) from one of those black marks on another ball. Cool, huh? It probably happened while the balls were being pressed together in the BP bucket or an equipment bag. I love stuff like that.

Every batter in the final group of BP was left-handed, so I headed over to the standing-room-only section (aka “The Flag Court”) in right field:

The sun out there was brutal. Even though I was wearing a cap, I had to use my right hand to shade my eyes:

Let me show you what I mean. Here’s a photo that Jona took while standing right behind me:

Not only was it tough to see, but every time a ball sailed into the Flag Court, there was an all-out stampede for it:

At one point, I completely whiffed on a line-drive homer that pretty much came right to me because I simply couldn’t see the ball. I found myself backing away from it and stabbing awkwardly at a random spot in the air where I thought it was going to end up. I suppose it was worth missing out on it to avoid getting hit in the face, but I still felt like a failure.

Here’s another action shot of a home-run-induced stampede:

This ball ended up sailing completely over the Flag Court and clanging off the grill in Boog’s Barbecue.

I did manage to snag one ball in right field, and I owe it all to Jona and Bassey. The ball bounced into the cross-aisle just next to the Flag Court and came to rest at Jona’s feet. I was about 20 feet away at that point, and because there were other fans nearby, I figured Jona or Bassey would grab the ball. But instead Jona yelled, “Don’t touch it!!” and Bassey used his body to form a mini-barricade (or, as he desribed it, a “containment zone”) around it so that no one else could grab it. I was able to race over and scoop up the ball, and because it hadn’t entered the possession of any other fan, I was able to count it. If Jona or Bassey (or Roger, who was also standing nearby) had picked it up and handed it to me, that would have nullified it. So…big thanks to my friends for bailing me out and helping me reach double digits — that was my 10th ball of the day — when luck/skill seemed to turn against me.

Here are the four of us being silly after BP…

…and here’s a HUGE moth-like creature that was chillin’ nearby on a brick wall:

If that thing had flown into my face, I’m quite certain that Roger, Bassey, and Jona would now be deaf because I would have shrieked THAT loud. We all have our weaknesses, and bugs are one of mine. Nature is pretty and all, but I don’t like to get too close to it, if you know what I mean. I live a quarter of a mile from Central Park. That’s good enough.

Shortly before game time, I got Will Rhymes to sign my ticket…

…and then I snagged two more baseballs within a 10-second span. The first was thrown by Brandon Inge. Here’s a photo of him just before he let it fly:

In the photo above, do you see the guy on the field wearing the navy blue athletic gear? Well, I assumed that he was the Tigers’ strength/conditioning coach, so I pulled out my cheat sheet…

…and felt pretty certain that his name was Chris. When all the players headed back to the dugout, there was one ball that was still sitting on the grass near the foul line. This guy happened to pick it up, so I shouted, “CHRIS!!!” as loud as I could, and what do you know? He turned and flung it to me as he jogged off the field.

That was my 12th — and unfortunately last — ball of the day. During the game, I had two really close calls on foul balls behind the plate, and I missed Nick Markakis’s fourth-inning homer by two feet. It was so depressing. I was standing at the back of the Flag Court. The ball was hit exactly in my direction, meaning I was perfectly lined up with it from the moment that it left the bat. I quickly determined that it wasn’t going to reach the back of the section, so I darted forward, hoping to make the catch just behind the wall at the front. Well, the ball landed ON TOP of the wall (where there’s a three-foot-wide metal platform) and skipped back over my head and rolled to the EXACT SPOT where I’d been standing in the first place. I still would’ve had the ball if some bozo eating a pulled pork sandwich hadn’t been standing there. It was terrible. Meanwhile, it seemed as if everyone else I knew was snagging game-used baseballs. Tim somehow got his hands on the only other homer of the night, a blast to straight-away left by Brandon Inge, and Bassey managed to grab a foul ball despite sitting in the middle of a row on the first base side.

Here’s Bassey with his ball — the first one he’d ever snagged in his life, including batting practice:

Great for Bassey. Great for Tim. But it just added to my frustration. I busted my butt and ran all over the stadium for two hours and didn’t have anything to show for it. That’s right. Two hours. That’s how long the game lasted. The Orioles won, 2-1, behind a strong six-inning performance from Brian Matusz. Mike Gonzalez, Jim Johnson, and Koji Uehara each worked a quick scoreless inning in relief. For the Tigers, Armando Galarraga went the distance and notched a rare complete-game loss. He threw just 91 pitches in eight innings. That’s how to play a game in two hours. (Yankees and Red Sox, are you listening?)

After the final out, I met up with a friend from Baltimore named Adam. You might recognize him from previous blog entries. Here we all are:

The five of us went out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant, and then Jona and Roger and Bassey and I went back to our hotel. We were gonna have to be up early-ish the next day for the final game of the regular season.

SNAGGING STATS:

• 12 balls at this game (11 pictured on the right because I gave one away)

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